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The "status quo" was negotiated by Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, who offered subsidies to ultra-Orthodox Jewish scholars devoting their lives to study in the wake of the Holocaust. In exchange, the ultra-Orthodox accepted the rule of a civilian state in the place of the Messianic revelation they had hoped for. Over time, that bargain has fossilized into a knotted system of state-sponsored religious customs that fewer and fewer Israelis are willing to tolerate. In the push for religious freedom of expression in Israel, the tide may now be turning.